SPACE
The 44-year-old mystery of why Jupiter’s Io is so volcanic is solved
WORDSPANDORA DEWAN
Io is the most volcanically active world in our Solar System
NASA scientists have revealed the secrets of the most volcanic
body in our Solar System. The discovery solves a 44-year-old mystery of why Jupiter’s violent moon Io became so volcanically active. Io is only slightly larger than our Moon and has an estimated 400 volcanoes. Plumes from these volcanoes’ eruptions can stretch for miles out into space, and can even be seen from Earth when viewed through large telescopes. This dramatic volcanism was first identified in 1979 by scientist Linda Morabito in an image taken by NASA’s Voyager 1. “Since Morabito’s discovery, planetary scientists have wondered how the volcanoes were fed from the lava underneath the surface,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator for NASA’s Juno spacecraft from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “Was there a shallow ocean of white-hot magma fuelling the volcanoes, or was their source more localised?”